The system was built with the assumption that you're going to have SREs, lots of them, with experience babysitting the systems, to keep them working. SREs were

The system was built with the assumption that you're going to have SREs, lots of them, with experience babysitting the systems, to keep them working. SREs were cheaper than building a system that can handle lots of unexpected things without any SREs. They have lost 7 out of 8 people, and lots of systems have 0 remaining employees who can be usefully on call for them. With so much institutional knowledge lost, they will not be able to handle the kind of issues they used to handle before with merely hiccups.